True to myself, I keep believing,
Despite the things I hear and see,
That all events will have a meaning,
Though meaningless they now seem.
Time is unstoppable and endless.
And though I know it to be true,
I don’t get doubtful or restless,
Believing God is endless too.
New lines imprint a webby pattern
Upon my forehead, temples gray,
This leap year it begins to matter
What I have done along my way.
I can’t step twice into a river,
Or come out dry from every pour.
All ultimatums I deliver
Are to myself and no one more.
I set the bar for my own self,
For what I do and say and write.
I put myself onto bookshelf
And feel what’s happening inside.
I’ll go on straight and turn around
Four times to end the shuttle run,
I’ll solve my route across and down
And win a medal place of rhyme.
I want to write something that counts,
To break through a transparent tape
That’s at the finish of the doubts
And limits I want to escape.
I must get from under my covers,
And set my poems free.
Being locked between book covers
Is what their freedom means.
If I am in a bind somehow,
I want my poems bound, too.
Though meaningless it’s looking now,
I’m sure they will be a breakthrough!
Я был всегда разговорчив
И падок на яркую речь,
Слов тесто желал ворочать,
На языке его печь.
Немного внимания, люди,
О многом ли вас прошу?!
Вот он я – весь на блюде,
На чувства себя крошу.
Крепких объятий не чая,
Стакан опрокину любви.
Рождённый воздушным маем,
Чеканно рублю рубаи.
TikTok, тик-так. Просто так…
Инстаграм. Run, Lola, run!
Все селфи во вскрытом сейфе.
Видеоблог – не лирический Блок.
Я не смогу по-другому,
Да и вряд ли когда захочу:
Вездесущий попсовый гомон
Слышно уже за версту.
Мысль сжимают донельзя,
Метр полный сейчас не в ходу.
«Хайпу спокойно доверься», —
В громкую дуют Дуду.
Питает Шнур телевизор,
С немецкого Ernst – «всерьёз».
Склоняя антенну Пизой,
Мы ловим кривой курьёз.
Смеются комедианты
И крутятся в соцсетях —
В комедии, как у Данте,
При ржущих до слёз чертях.
TikTok, тик-так. Просто так…
Инстаграм. Run, Lola, run!
Все селфи во вскрытом сейфе.
Видеоблог – не лирический Блок.
Отечества дым российский,
От Балтики до Курил,
Иных социальных расистов
Давно бы уже выкурил.
Вербальных моих интервенций
Отменная русская брань
Пусть топит, как воды Венецию,
Всю плесневелую рвань.
На социальных площадках
Отмечу один контрапункт:
Да будет словесная схватка
И антихайповый бунт!
I’ve always talked, before and now,
My tongue has baked the verbal dough,
I’ve cooked up showy monologs
And written spicy posts for blogs.
I want your attention, I claim it,
I offer my innermost plainly.
Brief, like the Rubaiyat’s lines,
Or in endless receding rhymes.
I want to start a verbal fight
For what I still believe is right.
Tik Tok – around the clock,
Run Lola run – through Instagram,
A videoblog – forget Pushkin and Blok,
Inner world – behind a password.
Pop art, pop music, pop up ads
Are on the line that never ends.
Thoughts are compressed, expressed, suppressed,
While feature films are in regress.
While Ernst is serious about
Making TV a knockabout,
The viewers seek an endless hype
And Peter Piper plays his pipe.
Image is everything there is,
Unreal and fleeting like a whiz.
Tik Tok – around the clock,
Run Lola run – through Instagram,
A videoblog – forget Pushkin and Blok,
Inner world – behind a password.
A million little devils laugh
At what their net presents as gaffe.
We thoughtlessly accept a fake,
They make – we eat, they give – we take.
Can I oppose my sound mind
To tons of bullshit unrefined?
Can anyone still hear my words
Through nonsense fed by million cords?
I feel like swearing every time
I read or hear a crooked line.
Tik Tok – around the clock,
Run Lola run – through Instagram,
A videoblog – forget Pushkin and Blok,
Inner world – behind a password.
No password’s safe for someone cunning,
And Lola’s selfie is always running.
Social racists on the rise
Awaiting our next demise.
Connected to an SNS,
You’re separated from the rest:
From land, from history and bonds,
Dependent on the net’s response.
Revolt against this new dependence!
The wounded truth deserves a vengeance.
